Chris LaPierre, a longtime head brewer at Iron Hill Brewery and stalwart of the Philly brewing scene, has died at 52

Chris LaPierre, a veteran of Iron Hill Brewery and a fixture in the Philadelphia-area brewing scene for two decades, died July 28, five days before his 53rd birthday. His sister, Katherine Cummings, said he had a heart attack.

The death of Lappy, as he was known, sent shockwaves through the beer community, where he was regarded as an innovator and a mentor to countless home brewers. At Iron Hill, Mr. LaPierre’s Belgian ale, known as the Cannibal, won a gold medal at the 2005 Great American Beer Festival; a silver at the World Beer Cup the following year; and a GABF silver in 2015. Mr. LaPierre, an avid cyclist who once biked cross-country solo, named it in tribute to Belgium’s Eddy “The Cannibal” Merckx, winner of five Tour de France races.

“We proudly poured that whenever it was available, partly because we knew Chris would stop by for a glass or two,” said Tom Peters, owner of Monk’s, a Belgian bar in Center City.

“Chris was very passionate about a number of things: beer, Philadelphia, and bicycling,” his sister said.

Thirty years ago, Mr. LaPierre was a home brewer, newly armed with a journalism degree from Syracuse University, when he took a server’s job at Dock Street Brewery, then on Logan Square. His immersion in the beer business created a career conflict, Cummings said. “One of the things that always fascinated him about brewing was the chemistry,” she said, a direct link to their father’s career as a chemical engineer for Mobil.

Mr. LaPierre decided to set aside the journalism career and moved to Boston to take a production job at Harpoon Brewery. He returned to the Philadelphia area in 2002 to join the growing Iron Hill chain as head brewer at its West Chester location. “He wanted a job where he could look customers in the eye,” said Iron Hill cofounder Mark Edelson.

Most recently, Mr. LaPierre stepped aside from brewing. He was equal parts sales representative and brand ambassador for Iron Hill — it was less physical than “humping around 50-pound sacks of grain and all that,” Edelson said.

Though Mr. LaPierre worked at Iron Hill locations outside of the city, Edelson said, “he was insistent on living in the city, where he found beauty in its tavern culture. He would always, even before we were distributing, sneak Iron Hill beer on tap at his local [pub] so when he was not at Iron Hill, he could go and have an Iron Hill beer.”

When Iron Hill opened in Maple Shade in 2009, Edelson said, “everyone said to us, ‘South Jersey is a barren wasteland of craft beer. They love their Miller Lite.’ We hit a home run and Chris was in the middle of that.”

Mr. LaPierre created a home-brewing club that drove beer events to Iron Hill. Vince Masciandaro was a member of that club in 2011 when he won a drawing to go to Brasserie Dupont, the legendary brewery in Tourpes, Belgium, to create a beer to be poured at the 2012 Philly Beer Week. Mr. LaPierre, in turn, won a drawing among professional brewers, and the two worked side by side with Dupont’s fourth-generation brewer, Olivier Dedeycker. “That was one of the luckier things to happen in my life,” Masciandaro said.

It also led to a new business. Masciandaro and another club member, Rich Palmay, opened Village Idiot Brewing Co. in Mount Holly, for which Masiandaro credited Mr. LaPierre’s advice. (Palmay died of a heart attack at age 56 in 2015.)

Inquirer critic Craig LaBan, who was along on the trip to Belgium, called Mr. LaPierre “a stellar brewer and an all-around wonderful guy. He was eager to learn, and incredibly humble.”

Christopher LaPierre was born Aug. 2, 1971, on Mather Air Force Base near Sacramento, Calif., while his father, Rene LaPierre, was serving in Vietnam. While Rene LaPierre finished his doctorate, he and the family — Chris, Katherine, and their mother, Patricia — moved to Massachusetts. The LaPierres later settled in Medford, N.J., while his father worked in Paulsboro.

This week, friends remembered Mr. LaPierre’s good-natured spirit and can-do attitude. “‘Sure’ is the word I hear when I think about Lappy,” said Lew Bryson, a drinks writer. “From the first days I met him at the original Dock Street to when I last saw him in June, he was always ready, always open to an idea, always ready to go along with a joke or to go all in to help a colleague or a friend. He gave so much to us all: knowledge, respect, laughter, and of course, beer.”

William Reed, an owner of Standard Tap, said: “We each spent most of the last 30 years brewing beer, drinking beer, talking about beer, and occasionally we would be friendly with some fine whiskey. The rest of the time we wasted.”

Mr. LaPierre’s parents predeceased him. Besides his sister, Mr. LaPierre is survived by his brother-in-law, James Cummings; his nieces, Madeleine and Lucy; and aunts, uncles, and cousins.

Edelson said Iron Hill plans to create a scholarship fund in Mr. LaPierre’s memory and, in September, will create cans of the Cannibal beer with Mr. LaPierre’s face on the label.

A Celebration of Life is planned for noon Aug. 10 at the Iron Hill Brewery & Restaurant in Center City Philadelphia at 1150 Market St., Philadelphia.